Getting Started on GitHub

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a popular web service for hosting Git repositories–a place to store and sync your work in the cloud, with benefits! It provides a handy web interface for editing and collaborating on repos, including built in project management features, user access controls, static web hosting, and other useful features.

GitHub is where the distributed part of Git gets really cool. With a central repo hosted on GitHub, you can easily collaborate with anyone in the world, or yourself across multiple computers, and never get out of sync with your project!

Just keep in mind that Git (version control system) and GitHub (web hosting platform) are two separate things!

Using the GitHub Web Interface

In a typical Git workflow, you will start on GitHub by setting up a project repository. You (and collaborators) will then clone a copy of that repository to your local machine(s). You will then work on the files locally, before push-ing your new changes back to the GitHub “remote” repository.

So, the best way to start learning about Git, is to create a new repository on GitHub.

Create a New Repository

To create a new repository:

1. Visit GitHub and ensure you are logged in. If you are a new user, your home page might look pretty empty, but eventually will be filled with a feed of recent activity.
2. Click the “+” plus sign icon on the upper right of the nav bar and select “New repository” from the drop down menu.
3. Fill in the “Create a new repository” page:
   • “Owner” is you. Every repo is associated with an individual or organization.
   • “Repository name” is what you want to call this repo. It must be unique among the owner’s repos. Naming conventions depend on your project type, but generally avoid spaces and weird characters.
   • “Public” / “Private”. Choose “Public”. Anyone can visit a public repository–but that’s okay! The entire web is public and GitHub is mostly open source code, i.e. public repositories with code people can view and copy for free (following the license applied by the owner).
   • Check the “Add a README file” option in the “Initialize this repository with” section. This makes it easier to get started.
4. Finally, click the green “Create repository” button.

Welcome to your new repository!

You are now (hopefully) looking at your new repository’s home page, i.e. the “Code” tab on GitHub. Keep in mind that the repository is really just a folder of files! In this case we have a folder (the name of your repository) with a single file “README.md”.

Edit a File

You will notice that by default the contents of the “README.md” file are displayed on the home page of your repository. This is a convention used in many code projects–README is a place to write the basics about your repository so users will understand what it contains, who made it, and any other information they should know. On GitHub READMEs are usually written in Markdown (thus the .md extension).

Let’s edit the “README.md” file using the web editor:

1. Click on the filename “README.md”. This will bring you to the file’s page, which displays the rendered content.
2. Click on the pencil icon in the upper right corner of the file box to open the web editor.
3. In the “Edit file” box, use the editor to add some new content. This is a plain text editor something like Notepad or TextEdit.
4. Scroll down to the “Commit changes” box.
5. Enter a commit message describing what changes you just did. This is your message to the future to help understand the code.
6. Click the green “Commit changes” button.

Congrats, you just made your first commit–you used Git! You added one snapshot to the history of the repository.

Add a File

Let’s add another file to the repository:

1. Click on the “Code” tab to get back to the home of your repository.
2. Click “Add file” above the file list, and select “Create new file” from the dropdown.
3. In the “Name your file…” box, type in a filename (usually something without spaces and ending with a file extension), such as “example.md”.
4. In the “Edit file” box, use the editor to add some new content to the file.
5. Scroll down to the “Commit changes” box.
6. Enter a commit message describing what changes you just did.
7. Click the green “Commit changes” button.

View History

Now that we have a few commits, let’s view the history of the repository:

1. Click on the “Code” tab to get back to the home of your repository.
2. Click on “commits” on the right hand side of the file listing area. This provides a sequential list of all commits made in the repository.
3. Click on a commit message or hash to view the commit details. This page provides a “git diff” detailing the exact changes made by the commit.

Other Features

Every GitHub repo has handy project management features built in. Take a minute to explore the Issues, Projects (trello board-like), Wiki, Insights, and Settings tabs of your repository:

• Issues can be used to track work, ideas, bugs, and task lists. Can be used in conjunction with Projects (trello board-like task lists) to manage project development.
• Wiki can be used to document your repository.
• Insights provides statics about your work and collaborators.
• Settings tab:
  • “Manage access” is used to add collaborators using their GitHub user name.
  • To delete a repository scroll down to the bottom to find the delete button.
• github.dev Web Editor is a browser-based text editor that you can open to edit any repository by pressing . or changing the URL from “github.com” to “github.dev”. It basically a light-weight version of Visual Studio Code that can be used without installing anything.